Tennis Court Mathematics

What an amazing amount of mathematics you can discover in a tennis match.

For a start there are the dimensions of the court. All measurements are calculated to the outside edge so there can be no disputes about which balls are in or out. Tennis courts were obviously created a long time before metric measurements were used as the measurements are all unusual numbers and not neat Base 10 multiples of 5 or 10.

Then there are all the mathematical results and statistics. For example, you can check our Roger Federer’s career here. Roger has won 18 Grand Slam titles and a total of 89 competitions. Roger has also won the most matches – 314 matches to date. Check out 100s more fascinating statistics yourself. What an astounding career.

Then there are all the mathematical adjectives you can research.

e.g. the longest match ever played? See Nicolas Mahut v John Isner at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships(11 hours and 5 minutes over 3 days …).

e.g. the longest rally? See Vicky Nelson v Jean Hepner at Richmond VA in 1984 – it was 643 shots.

e.g. the fastest serve? Roger Federer’s maximum speed is 230 km/h. See the Australian player Sam Groth in the 2012 Busan Open Challenge, Korea. Sam’s registered speed was 263.5 km/h.

There is so much to explore with your students. Comparing and ordering decimal numbers, thinking about what numbers mean in a real life context.